Chapter Nine #3
It felt weird to still be kneeling. Like she was begging for forgiveness—except, of course, that she wasn’t doing a very good job.
Talking about the things that mattered had never been her forte.
Bridget wished they were still kissing. Kissing had always been the easiest and best thing about this. The rest was much more complicated.
Gwen shook her head, then placed the sword carefully on top of Bridget’s trunk with frightening formality and said, “I honestly thought you’d come back here and tell me right away that you just wanted to be friends. Not that you’ve been much of a friend either.”
Bridget frowned. “So then … why did you come to my room?”
“Because I decided today that if you’d changed your mind, I wanted to be the one to end things with you first!
” Gwen said, exasperated. Bridget winced, but she knew she deserved it.
“Because I was the one sending you letter after letter like an idiot, because I didn’t think anything had changed—you said nothing would change—and the longer you didn’t reply, the worse it felt, and eventually I realized that I didn’t deserve that. I have enough going on here without…”
She gestured to Bridget. The problem. Bridget didn’t like being the problem.
Life had been so much simpler before Gwen.
The knowledge that there would be absolutely nothing easy about entangling herself with the thorny princess of Camelot had been one of the main reasons she’d been reluctant to interweave their lives, no matter how much she enjoyed watching Gwen bite her lip as she watched the lists, or wrap the ends of her braids absentmindedly around her finger.
It should have just been a summer fling and a return to life as normal.
That would have been cleaner. Almost painless.
Gwen was shaking her head again, backing away. She was going to leave the room, and then it would be over. Bridget could just sit here and say nothing and let it happen.
“Hey,” she said, rising from her knees. “Wait. Sit down.” It wasn’t going to work, and Bridget knew it wasn’t, and in her sudden panic her walls crumbled just enough to allow one nakedly desperate, too-honest word to fly free.
“Please.”
Gwen took a deep breath in and out, and then sat down in the other fireside chair. Bridget sat too, moving very slowly. The fire crackled; her jacket dripped. They were two feet and a universe apart, and if Bridget didn’t start speaking, both distances would be insurmountable.
“I don’t know what to say because I’m bad at talking about things,” she said falteringly.
Excruciatingly. But she had to keep going.
“It’s not that I don’t want to, and it’s not that I didn’t …
I wanted to reply. To your letters. I had no intention of …
I was going to hold up my end of the deal.
There was no doubt in my mind, when I left.
And then … I missed you. All the time, even when I was trying not to.
What was going on out there, with me, it wasn’t about … you.”
Gwen blinked back at her, rightfully wary. “Okay. What was it about?”
Bridget’s whole body winced away from the question. “I don’t really know. Something’s off. With me.”
“Was it because you kept losing?” Gwen said, which hurt. “I saw you were having trouble in the lists.”
This did not even come close to describing whatever the hell was going on in Bridget’s head and heart and gut, but it would do for now. “Sort of.”
Gwen nodded. It was impossible to know what she was thinking, but at least she was still sitting there while she was thinking it.
She looked down at her hands, and Bridget saw her go to pick at the scrap of frayed skin by her thumb and then stop herself.
“I don’t want to force you to talk to me if that’s not what you want.
That’s too depressing. We can’t be together at all if it’s going to be like that.
I don’t want to send any more unanswered letters. ”
Bridget’s throat squeezed. “That’s fair.”
“So which is it?” Gwen said, head held high. “From now on? Are we talking, or are we not talking?”
It would have been such an immediate relief to give up, to be left to hide in peace.
But the thought also meant gut-wrenching sadness.
There had been good reasons why Bridget had decided this risk was worth the cost. Long evenings spent kissing and touching until their mouths and fingertips felt raw and sparkling, yes, but apart from that—Gwen was brilliantly, furiously funny, even when she didn’t mean to be; perpetually outraged, powered by some kind of nervous, righteous energy that Bridget loved to watch.
She was fascinatingly beautiful. And the way she’d wanted Bridget …
It was like she hadn’t known she was supposed to hold back, like the only way to be with someone was to begin at a gallop and not stop for fences.
“Talking,” Bridget said. “Please.”
She didn’t know how, but if Gwen could forgive her enough to ask, there had to be some hope for them after all.